It was awesome. I’m totally hooked. I need a supermoto.

David was on fire!

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Total accident that they were arriving as we were finishing with the Cannery Row madness.

After a wonderful evening chatting we crashed on the boat and were up early to head to Laguna Seca! What an awesome track.

The races were amazing. Very cool all-electric race after the main event.

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It’s a lovely rural area with all of the beautiful mountain scenery you would expect from Austria. Rolling green hills, soaring rocky peaks, stone castles, tiny towns, and small narrow twisty roads. Perfect! With road elevations below 3000ft and unseasonably warm weather, I didn’t have to worry about snow.

It was a little bit of a mission to find a motorcycle to rent in Vienna, but with some help from friend and colleague Michael, we located a nearby motorcycle store called BikeCity. This is when the fun started! They were happy to rent me a ZX6R (100 euros), but they didn’t have a jacket, gloves, pants, or boots to rent. I called every store in the city. No gear rental. Everyone referred me to another rental store, which unfortunately went out of business in the summer.

I knew it would be cold and possibly a little rainy in the mountains, so I posted a plea for help on a motorcycle message board. Most thought I was having fun at their expense, and others suggested I was a poor planner (guilty!), but a few kind souls offered some advice and suggestions. I ran down all the leads, unsuccessfully, but a young Austrian named Chris took pity on me and offered me his gear for the day.

We met for drinks and I managed to squeeze into his jacket and boots, even though Chris is 30lbs skinnier than I am. He even drove me back/forth from the motorcycle store the next day! I couldn’t believe I was so fortunate to meet someone so kind and friendly. Hopefully one day I can repay the favour and we can ride together in California or somewhere else.

I rode a ZX6R Ninja, a high-revving sportbike with a redline above 16,000rpm. Funnily enough, Chris crashed this bike just a few months earlier. Bad Chris! My Speed Triple 1050 is totally different: gobs of wheelie-torque, a 9000rpm redline, and an upright riding position, so it was fun to ride something different. The ZX6R really didn’t make much power below 10krpm, so I found myself constantly flipping between the gears to keep the bike moving. The scream of an inline on the boil is pure magic. The seating position was fun for the first four hours, and not so much after that.

I rode regional “B” roads: B17 south, B11 West, B18 South West, B21 West, B71 North West, B25 North, B28 East, B39 East, and then reconnected to the A1/B1 freeway back into Vienna. Here’s a google maps route:

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Some comments:

There are speed cameras everywhere near Vienna. They’re gray boxes on either side of the road. They were very difficult to spot, so I always tried to ride with traffic and was careful whenever anyone slowed down for no apparent reason. There aren’t very many outside of Vienna, and only in towns. I hope that’s true, I’m not completely sure. I didn’t see them if they were out there. I didn’t see any police cars on the B roads.

At the junction of B27 and the road from Gutenstein is a restaurant called Kalte Kuchl, or “Cold Kitchen”. It’s been around for 500 years, and is now a scenic motorcycle hangout. Chris recommended I get the topfenstrudel with some hot chocolate, it was incredible.

If you hear a funny pinging noise, it’s sand or gravel being thrown up from the front tire, and if you’re turning at a high rate of speed you will very shortly lose traction and start sliding the front. Fun!

The 30km of B71 was awesome, starting from Mariazell and going all the way North West to Polzburg. Perfect smooth roads, beautiful mountain scenery, no traffic, only a few villages with slow zones. B39 was good too.

Boots two or three sizes too small will keep your feet warm and safe, but you won’t be walking in them by the end of the day. More like hobbling.

The ZX6R hits 220kph in the top of fourth, and still has two more gears! I wouldn’t know this directly because I always drove at the speed limit, but I imagine this would burn a lot of gas.

There are very few gas stations in the middle of the ride. I only got 130km before the low-fuel light came on. If you then keep the bike in 6th gear and keep the revs below 4krpm (and turn the engine off and ghost-ride downhill!) you can make it another 25km. Apologies to the rider who passed me while I was slowly riding uphill, and who I zoomed by in full tuck ‘stealth mode’ on the way back down the other side.

I was happy I only had jeans on. The temptation to drag knee was overwhelming. I kept thinking to myself “don’t be a squid, don’t be a squid”. It didn’t work, but no knee pucks were a strong motivating factor!

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Don’t get a new or nice bike as your first bike. Sorry to say but odds are you’ll crash or drop the bike in your first six months of riding. Bikes are unconditionally stable lying on their side! In six months or after your first crash you’ll either like motorcycling and want a better bike, or you won’t like it and you’ll eventually stop riding.

Don’t get a bike you can’t flatfoot at a stop sign. Don’t get a first bike with more than 50hp. Wheelspin and wheelies aren’t things you need to worry about the first time you sneeze while riding. Don’t get a first bike with nice cosmetics or a custom paint job. It won’t look so good after you bin it. The Ninja 250 is a great first bike, and they have good resale value because other people want to learn on them.

Always wear your gear, at a minimum: full-face helmet, jacket, gloves, boots that cover your ankles. There are jeans that have kevlar in them that are good to crash in. You’re going to crash. Plan for the crash. (BTW: it’s not OK to crash, ever)

Your tires always have a certain amount of traction to the pavement. Turning, braking, hard acceleration, uneven pavement, or some liquid between the tire and pavement additively reduce the tire’s traction. If you lose enough traction, the wheels will slip and skid and you will crash.

You can brake 100% when the bike is straight up and down, and only 25% when the bike is leaned over. Yes, you can turn and brake. Do it too much and the wheel stops turning, starts sliding, and you’ll crash. Trail off the brake as you start to turn, and be off when you’re leaning furthest.

Use only the front brake. The rear brake is ornamental. Don’t practice with the rear brake. Don’t think about the rear brake. Your bike only has one brake: the front one.

Look where you want to go. If you see a bump or a squirrel or some oil, don’t look at it! If you go into a corner too hot and you think you’re not going to make it, look at the exit and lean the bike more. The bike is soooo much more capable than you think. You can almost always lean further and make the corner.

Don’t ever think that you can stand up the bike mid-corner and make it out alive. This is a trap. You won’t make it. You’ll ride off the road and immediately crash in the gravel and dirt and ditch and they won’t find your body for days. Look at the exit, turn more, gently squeeze your brakes.

Don’t ride when it’s wet. If you do, don’t ride over white painted road signs. If you do, don’t brake. If you’re riding in the wet, over a painted road marker, while braking, lets all hope that the bike is up and down and you don’t need to turn.

If you do crash, fight it. Let go of the brakes and grab them again. Turn. Kick your inside foot down. Do anything to avoid the crash! If you’re unsuccessful at saving it and you’re about to hit the ground, go limp. I’ve crashed at very high speeds in highly undesirable situations and going limp is my secret method to crashing successfully. When you stop sliding, stay still, you’re still sliding. When you really stop, get out of the road right away!

Cars turning left are the enemy. Any car in any lane turning left is dangerous. Actually, cars anywhere are bad. Develop your spidey sense. Try to think about what other people are doing. Ride just a little faster than everyone else so you’re the one doing the passing. Dominate your lane and don’t share. Never ever leave your lane. Cross double yellows at your peril. Don’t lanesplit until you’ve gotten past your six-month crash window.

Most people drop bikes in parking lots, at stop signs and red lights. Most people lowside when they see something they think they can’t avoid and decide to ‘lay it down’. Tires have more traction than plastic and the bike will always stop faster when the tires are on the pavement.

Practice. Learn how to brake HARD. Learn how to brake so hard the front tire locks and skids. Learn to let off the brake a little bit then squeeze again even harder.

Don’t ride faster than you can see. Imagine you’re riding around a corner with a canyon wall on the inside. You can see 30 feet of your lane ahead of you. Don’t ride faster than you can stop in 30 feet, otherwise what happens when you see the cow standing in the road?

Don’t get sucked into following people who are faster than you. They have better bikes, better skills, and are almost always luckier than you. Don’t ride with squids. Don’t ride with people who talk about chicken strips or their last crash. It’s not ok to crash.

Good luck!

I have no idea how to ride a supermoto. I hang off the inside, stick my knee out, and keep the bike standing up. It feels right but I guess it doesn’t work in the dirt. Plus knee-dragging is so last year.

Brad and I went to Prarie City to learn how to ride supermoto-style: which means sliding your hips forward up against the bars, pushing the bike down underneath you, sticking your inside foot all the way forward (beside the front wheel), and keeping your outside elbow up.

The style is basically standing up while throwing the bike horizontally into the corner. I think you put your foot forward to kick the bike back up if it decides to lowside. It’s totally counter-intuitive, because by leaning the bike over you’re reducing the contact patch of the tires.

We had a blast. Brok and Tyler from supermotoschools.com were excellent instructors, the CRF230 they provided me with was a great beginner bike, and we had so much track time we were completely exhausted by the end of the day. Driving home was fun, I was barely able to grip the steering wheel. Two days later I’m having problems walking down stairs and can barely stand.

If only I had a garage and a truck…

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I have now ridden ~700 miles on Speedy, some notes:

• Fuel warning light comes on after ~3.2 gallons burned, with a 4.76 gallon tank; that’s only at 67%!
• 3.2 gallons gets me between 100-130 miles, or 31-40mpg; Prius is winning at 47-50mpg
• Stock seat means a stretch is required after about 3 hours, just in time to get more gas
• Passenger seat is small, pegs are high, but if pillion is 5′3″ and very cute, she will fit
• Front wheel pops up easy in first, but not enough in second; sprocket change?
• Stock suspension sucks, progressive fork springs need to be replaced
• Throttle response is abrupt, am going to adjust cable tension and see
• TORS exhaust sounds just incredible!!

Sara outdid herself this year. This ranks up there with “best present ever”.

We bought the bike from pretty much the nicest guy in the whole world, John in Long Beach, and rode home over the long weekend. It’s the bike I’ve been dreaming about, lusting over. It’s a 1050cc Triumph Speed Triple, a monster hooligan machine that sounds, well, kinda awesome.

We stayed at a beautiful hotel in Pismo Beach, halfway up the California coastline. It was really warm and nice. In the middle of January! It’s supposed to be raining cats and dogs! Global warming rules.

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